


Deaths Real and Figurative

by yourlibrarian



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Episode: s07e02 Hello Cruel World, Episode: s07e07 The Mentalists, Episode: s07e10 Death's Door, Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-07 12:52:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6805348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlibrarian/pseuds/yourlibrarian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some consideration of the deaths of Castiel, Bobby, and Dean's moral center.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deaths Real and Figurative

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted December 7, 2011

I haven't really been keeping up on SPN news since last season and I never kept up with the fandom dramas -- I think it was a year after the anon communities had started that I even heard of them. Even so, I gathered that a lot of fans were upset about Castiel's seeming departure from the series, even though this would have been the third time he'd been killed on the show and the first time around his fate wasn't clear even over a season hiatus.

I can honestly say I was completely unmoved by Castiel's apparent end in 7.2, and I guess it was because I didn't buy it at all. I felt sure that this was just a way of writing him out of yet another season for clearer reasons than why he was largely ignored in S5 and S6. Plus it would save the show money. I felt sadder about the end of Singer Salvage, both because it seemed another price Bobby has paid for his involvement with the Winchesters, and because it was likely to be the last thing keeping Bobby in any sort of normal activity (although we've hardly ever seen evidence he does actual business with it, but presumably his money has to come from somewhere). Plus it had to have had a symbolic meaning to all of them. I did not, however, think that Bobby had perished along with his house.

I did find it somewhat interesting that this season, out of all of them, the Winchesters are supposed to be so concerned about "staying off the radar" that they ditch the Impala, even though they would have had very similar reasons for doing so in S3. Yet they were given even less reason to suspect widespread infiltration of law enforcement than took place with demons in S3 or even the FBI alone in S2. Then again, this is a series that ditched Dean's amulet without a backward look and his ring disappeared without any explanation at all.

All of which is to say, if Bobby happens to be gone for good, well, at least he had a decent and meaningful sendoff which is more than I can say for many other characters. I hadn't realized until now that Maureen Ryan's reviews of SPN had finally [started taking the series team to task](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maureen-ryan/supernatural-season-8_b_1651908.html) on the show's downward spiral, though it sounds like she's become more fed up with the fandom than the writers. All I can say is that I disagree with her that the problems began in mid-S6. To some degree they've been there since S1, in that they took the story from an episodic series to one with serious long-term arcs without, apparently, any skill set in really building characters or narratives. The biggest failure of the show is that so much of the writing reflects short-term thinking. At this point, they can't even develop an idea properly within the bounds of a single episode, much less a season. As Ryan points out, their carelessness with characters in favor of either a sensationalistic moment in an episode, or expediency in terms of things they apparently believe most of the audience won't care about, has undermined the very things many people watch the show for -- which is caring about the central characters as people. 

However, that's all been said before. What I thought was interesting was the way Ryan was arguing, essentially, that Dean's dickishness in 7.7 was out of character and badly written. (I reacted the same way she did to his confrontation with Sam). What's become clear to me though is that this is the way the writers see Dean -- not just as an asshole, but heroic _because_ he's an asshole. They happen to think that sort of character is great fun to write and is, I'm guessing, a way to give the finger to any sort of "political correctness" (if you're a conservative reactionary) or empathy to others (if you're, well, not). 

They seem to think of him as the _Cordelia Chase_ of SPN. And I thought Cordelia was a great character (although how she ended up is another story). However, Cordelia worked nicely in reverse -- a character who was self-centered and focused on the wrong things eventually gaining empathy and focusing on bigger picture things. She never changed completely but her character became heroic over time. Dean, unfortunately, has taken a reverse trip and what the writers seem to consider "heroism" is nothing more than nihilistic bravado wrapped around an increasingly unpleasant person who seems to feel his decisions are infallible and yet those same decisions are wildly inconsistent. 

What this reminds me of, perhaps not coincidentally, is [Sera Gamble's 3.2 episode](http://yourlibrarian.dreamwidth.org/61707.html). At the time I found the expectations for Ben inappropriate in the sections where he was supposed to be reminding Dean (and the audience) of himself, when Ben was actually just an 8 year old boy. Apparently we were supposed to find that sort of attitude "cute" instead of sexist and somewhat repulsive coming from a child that age. (Oddly, Ben doesn't seem to be very Dean-like in any of his other appearances, which you can put down to a continued lack of follow-through by the writers, but which would have seemed more likely from a budding teenager). Similarly, as an increasing number of characters tell us, we are apparently supposed to approve of Dean's adult behavior rather than finding it sexist, repulsive, or self-righteous. It's not that the writers hadn't already made clear that there are some world-view problems going on in the writers' room, but the insistence that we're supposed to idealize a character like this really seems like the last straw. 

And it's particularly strange because it seems only Dean whom this attitude is focused on. Not that we have a whole lot of other characters to identify with in this show, but it's been a long time since that the same sort of moral centeredness has been on Sam, Bobby, Ellen, etc. It just struck me lately that this particular tendency developed strongly in S4, not due so much to Sam (whom Dean always felt he needed to guide) but Castiel. Maybe the writers figured Dean had to be damn sure of himself to be telling an angel where to get off in terms of morality, but I don't think it did either character any favors in the long run.


End file.
